A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire, page 7
“What about when the earring was actually sold to the Garrisons? Was it after you were born? Or—”
Her mother sighed again. “Think of the times, Gisella. Your grandmother was desperate when she married Papa. She felt disloyal for turning to another man. Of course she romanticized the story of how she and Papa got their start here, especially when relaying it to her grandchildren.”
“So she lied. You’ve all been lying to us.”
“You were a child, Gisella.” Her tone suggested she still was, if this was her reaction.
“And still being treated like one, if you’re keeping things from me!”
“Your grandmother is very sensitive on the topic. I’ve never seen the need to contradict her version with facts that serve no purpose. I should get back to my marking. Will you come by for dinner later in the week?”
“If you’d like,” Gisella grumbled, planting a perfunctory kiss on her mother’s cheek as Alisz offered it.
“Tell your father I said hello.”
“I will,” Gisella promised and they took their leave.
CHAPTER FIVE
GISELLA WAS STILL nursing impotent fury when they entered Kaine’s newly renovated penthouse atop one of Manhattan’s iconic skyscrapers. Like Kaine’s home in San Francisco, this one was decorated in a spare, masculine style and had a view to die for.
She barely took it in, relieved to be away from her mother because she was still so mad at her, but agitated at being alone with Kaine. The click of the door as the doorman left her cases and departed made her abdomen suck in with tension.
“Let’s hear it,” she muttered as he poured them an aperitif.
“I told you I don’t gloat.”
“You still have to be reveling in being right.” She wanted to knock back the lime gimlet he handed her in one gulp, but showed some restraint. Her hand shook. What if he was also right about Benny? She had talked tough this morning, but what would taking the fall for her cousin really entail?
Throughout her life, she might have had disagreements with family members, but she always trusted them to be there for her. This was the first time she felt that foundation shake beneath her. It scared the hell out of her.
“Your mother wasn’t what I imagined. Given the warm way you talked about your family, I didn’t picture someone as practical and incisive as she seems to be. Yet she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on with the mining company.”
“Mother’s world is a bunch of professors who talk women’s studies and literature. She invests, but focuses on female entrepreneurs. She wouldn’t have talked to Uncle Ben about you and Benny. Her interest in Barsi on Fifth was exhausted years ago, minding Uncle Ben and Aunt Agotha in the back of the shop while my grandparents ran the front. That’s why she’s such a staunch feminist. She learned exactly how demanding children are. She almost skipped motherhood altogether. She was thirty-nine when she met my father and I sometimes think she married him and had me because her sister was having kids. She felt like she was running out of time.”
Gisella had only ever talked this frankly about it with Rozi. She wasn’t sure why she was telling Kaine. She had barely touched her drink, but Kaine had known things about her family that even she hadn’t.
Today, her mother, who was frank to a fault, had revealed a long-held lie, disillusioning her. She didn’t know whom to trust or what to believe. Kaine, at least, was honest with her, if hideously blunt about it. It wasn’t comfortable, but she knew where she stood.
“She was too old to have more after you? Is that why she never gave you siblings?”
“She didn’t want more. Dad did. He’s ten years younger than her. I remember them fighting about it. When I was eleven, he started having an affair with his secretary, Susan. She has two kids. He treats them like they’re his. I guess Susan gave him the more traditional wife and family he always wanted.”
A twitch around Kaine’s mouth suggested he disparaged such aspirations, but he only said, “So you do have stepsiblings.”
“They’re a lot younger than me. I was thirteen when they married. Bitter. Susan is still very defensive. Views me as a threat, I think, since I was the reason Dad took so long to leave Mom.”
She wrinkled her nose, trying not to descend into self-pity despite the fact it had been a really dark time. It still affected her. Her father doted on her in his materialistic way, but she had never quite forgiven him for his betrayal of her childish beliefs in happily-ever-after. She struggled to trust any man who professed to have feelings for her, which was a big contributor to her still-virginal state. Male promises were flimsy and men’s interest in any one woman likely to wane.
“My heart broke when Dad left. Way more than Mom’s. I think she was relieved. She never liked accommodating a man in her life. Maybe she even pushed him toward Susan, I don’t know. The divorce was very civilized, but I was angry with Dad and I’ve always been closer to Mom’s side of the family so I stayed with her. I only see Dad on special occasions.”
“The virtues of family and love,” he mused, shaking the ice in his glass before sipping.
It was another gentle yet withering indictment of the emotion she wanted to believe in, scoring surprisingly deep. Yet, given how things had played out with her mom, she had little room to argue a different view.
“I’ll go change and freshen my makeup. We should leave in about an hour.”
At least she had her own room. It was only a guest room, not the master, but it was still gorgeous with a small sitting area and French doors into a luxurious bathroom.
She wanted to message Rozi, but hesitated. How could she explain that she was pretending to shack up with Kaine for Benny’s sake? And that a lot of what they had always believed about their grandmother was a high polish on a tarnished teapot?
She read what Rozi had sent a few hours ago. She’d been turned away from her appointment with the Rohans and was on the hunt for Viktor. She said she would report back when she had news.
Gisella set aside her phone in favor of bolstering her flagging confidence by knocking Kaine’s eyes out of his sockets.
Given his seeming preference for less-is-more, she chose a very simple cranberry-red midi with a split leg. It looked quite conservative on the hanger, with a halter cut under her arms and a high collar line. The strapping in the back was more of a statement, crisscrossing her spine, but the way its jersey fabric clung to her body when she put it on was the real showstopper.
She added smoke to her eyelids, fluffed her hair and stepped into a pair of gold shoes with a chain around her ankles and a line of faux diamonds down the back of the stiletto heel.
It wasn’t until she walked into the lounge, where she found him wearing a fresh shirt and pants, nursing a drink, that she knew she hadn’t dressed merely to draw his eye.
She wanted him to want her.
Their kiss at the auction had never left her memory. She felt like ripe fruit, about to burst from her own skin. Her braless nipples prickled and her blood was so hot, her dress ought to catch fire.
She didn’t understand how being in the same room with Kaine aroused her this immediately and acutely, but it did. He did.
He didn’t move, but the force of sexual attraction between them seemed to bounce back and forth, like zigzagging laces that looped and tugged, pulling them toward each other.
“I’m flattered.” He smiled lazily and set aside his drink.
“I’ve dressed to tempt my lover. Isn’t that my assignment?”
“Color me tempted.”
It was nonsense banter. If they weren’t at such odds, she’d call it flirting. Which shouldn’t have the power to tighten her throat, but it did. She looked away, embarrassed by the fact she had achieved what she had hoped to and now she didn’t know what to do about it.
He ambled toward her, sending her pulse skyrocketing. He touched her jaw, gently urging her to meet his gaze.
When she did, the floor seemed to disappear from beneath her. All that held her upright was his fingerprint under her chin. His expression was inscrutable, but she felt as though her virginal nerves were playing larger than a Broadway hit across her face.
Did she want to have sex with him? It would be a terrible mistake, but she wanted to anyway. It sent her heart pounding so hard, she was sure he must hear it.
“I told you my terms,” he reminded quietly. Gravely. “You won’t get the earring out of me. I’ll still go after your cousin with every resource I have.”
“Quit making presumptions about me.” She gave her loose hair a haughty shake, dislodging his touch. “Even if I did want to sleep with you—which is very much an if. Even if I did, sex should be a mutual thing, not something one gives to get.” As if she knew a single damned thing about it.
“It should,” he agreed. “But it never is.”
“Why are you so cynical?” she asked with exasperation. “Yes, sometimes people let you down. I know that. It doesn’t mean we’re all out to get you. Quit judging me by whichever woman disappointed you in the past.”
He pushed his hands in his pockets. His jaw pulsed a moment as he considered her, making her nervous that she might have crossed a line. When he pivoted and moved to pick up his drink again, she blew out a subtle breath of relief.
Her lungs seized, however, when he said, “It was a little more than ‘disappointment,’” he said disdainfully.
“Did you love her?” She didn’t know why she asked, but the question was out before she realized it.
“I thought so.”
How strange to so instantly and thoroughly despise someone without even meeting her. Gisella concentrated on relaxing her midsection where her stomach had clenched in sick loathing, ears straining to hear him as he continued in an idle tone.
His smile was benign. “Yes, I, too, was once naive enough to think love was something I wanted. I thought a wife and kids would give me something I needed, I guess. I asked her to marry me and I suppose I should be thankful it didn’t get that far, but the net result was the same. Once she had access to my office and computer, she cleaned me out. I lost the first house I’d bought along with my stock in a company I’ve since reacquired.”
Given that he’d never had a proper home, she imagined that house must have been very important to him. She felt genuinely nauseous on his behalf and moved closer, letting him see she was appalled on his behalf.
“That’s horrible! Truly.” She softened her tone, beseeching him not to write her off as she added, “It doesn’t mean we’re all like that.”
“That’s the thing about foster care, though.” He threw back the last of his drink. His lashes were a flinty line. “People are always taking your stuff. Even social workers make you leave a house without all your belongings. I try not to care about material things anymore, but living comfortably is important to me. And it still makes me furious if someone takes what I’ve worked hard to acquire.”
That’s why he was feeling so murderous toward Benny. And why he looked at her dressing to kill as a false promise. A ploy.
How could she convince him that people could be generous and trustworthy? That desire and passion—her desire for him—was real?
A buzz sounded, startling her out of taking a step she might not be able to come back from.
“The car is here.” He shrugged on his jacket and opened the door.
The word Wait stayed lodge in her throat as she left with him.
* * *
Kaine knew from his report on Gisella’s family that her father owned one of the most highly regarded ad agencies on Madison Avenue. He had pulled out all the stops for his wife’s birthday, filling the Waldorf Astoria’s Starlight Ballroom with a fountain of Dom Pérignon and swag bags stuffed with the luxury brands he represented.
He greeted Gisella with a warm smile and shook Kaine’s hand as she introduced him. “I’m, um, staying with Kaine while he’s in New York.”
Her father did a small double take. “That sounds serious.”
“Dad.” Gisella cut him off with a smile that looked more like gritted teeth. “We’ll find a drink and let you continue greeting your guests.” She drew Kaine into the heart of the party.
“Your mother said we sounded serious, too,” Kaine recalled as they moved to the bar. “Should I brace for a shotgun in my armpit?”
“No. It’s just—it doesn’t matter.”
He thought she might be blushing again, but the bartender asked them for their order. He watched her as he waited for their drinks.
She’d been quiet on the way over, perhaps rethinking her strategy, now she was armed with the knowledge he was capable of being a fool.
He wasn’t sure what had made him share one of his few personal details that wasn’t as easily found online. While she’d been changing, he’d been brooding on what she’d told him of her family. She’d seemed legitimately angry with her mother for keeping secrets and embarrassed that she had believed an untruth for so long.
She had accused him of gloating, but he’d been too busy trying to figure out how she was making him think they had something in common. He had no family and she was so rich with it, she could afford to see her father only on special occasions. Yet somehow she portrayed herself as being set apart from all of them. Her mother was career focused, her father had built the family he’d preferred with someone else’s children.
Deep down, she was the same as him. Alone.
He knew how to overcome that, he’d been thinking, when she had strolled into his ruminations wearing a siren’s dress. He had wanted to say, Come with me and neither of us will ever be alone again.
He wanted her in ways that went beyond peeling away that dress and pressing his lips to her skin—although he craved that like air. But he wanted inside her head. He wanted to know if the things she said were coming from her heart. Did she even have one?
It doesn’t mean we’re all like that.
He wasn’t a man who feared risk, but he didn’t take stupid ones. Given her cousin’s treachery, he couldn’t afford to trust her.
But he wanted to.
And that made her more dangerous than any woman he’d ever met.
* * *
“You really don’t care for parties,” Kaine said as he drew her onto the dance floor. “You’re tense.”
He was playing his fingertips over the laces at the back of her dress as though strumming a stringed instrument. She couldn’t help but flex in reaction.
“I’m feeling very much on display. Are we accomplishing what you hoped?”
She kept thinking that if she could show him good faith as far as their deal went, he might begin to see her differently.
“You’re very beautiful. Of course you draw attention.”
She glanced up at him, ready to dismiss the compliment as a platitude, but she caught him staring down another man who may or may not have been checking out her butt.
She bit the corner of her mouth. Possessiveness wasn’t sexy, she reminded herself.
But she was succumbing to it herself, taking every chance to stake a claim by setting her hand on his arm or brushing one of her stray hairs from his jacket.
He was ridiculously handsome, standing taller than most of the men here, hair in rumpled bed-head spikes. His suit was more beautifully tailored than anyone’s, but he wasn’t nearly as buttoned down as the rest of this crowd and all the sexier for his less civilized demeanor.
He was a well-fed wolf among groomed show dogs, ten times as dangerous and able to take control of the pack merely by walking among them.
He seduced her by existing.
“As PR campaigns go, this is a start,” he answered, reminding her this wasn’t a date. It was an exercise in reparation.
She’d seen a few expressions shift as she’d introduced him. People were trying to place his name and connecting him in their heads to the Barsi reputation.
“It will be more effective once the gossip has a chance to percolate.” He drifted his hand upward to catch a loose tendril of her hair, tugging just hard enough she tilted her head back in response. “Perhaps we should give them something to talk about.”
She almost turned her heel and tightened her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. “If you want to kiss me, ask. Don’t turn it into something I have to do to uphold my side of this bargain.”
She half expected another cynical remark about how little he trusted her. Instead, his gaze warmed.
“I have a deadly fascination with this fiery side of you. I’m like a kid playing with matches.” He twirled her hair around his finger, drawing her head back another inch, trapping her like that. “I want to kiss you.” His expression tightened. “I’m dying to know if that passion you showed me the first time is still there. If it’s real.”
She couldn’t dance when she was trying to hold herself together. Conflict and longing engulfed her. She might have fought it, but behind his stony look, she caught a flash, quick as a glint in a mirror, that made her think she read the same emotions in him.
She slid her hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck, exerting pressure.
He accepted the invitation with the unerring swoop of a raptor.
And she was carried away.
Like him, she had wanted to know. Now she did. They were exactly as cataclysmic as they’d been that first time. More. This time she was primed by knowing him a little better. Primed by nearly two weeks of wondering if it could have possibly been this good and it was.
His mouth scraped across hers, wild and raw. Incendiary. His hands hardened on her back, ironing her to his front. Lights sparkled behind her eyes.
